While we are restructuring our government to rout out terrorists, we need to recognize that not all terrorists worship Allah – we have terrorists in this country who worship the earth, or so they claim. These misguided misfits should rank equally high on the “stop-the-terrorists” agenda.

Like al-Qaida, these green terrorists work in small cells, strike in the dark of night, and wreak havoc on what they believe to be unholy. They are as dangerous – and deluded – as the terrorists who become human bombs in Israel, or in New York City.

They are often known as the Earth Liberation Front, and sometimes, the Animal Liberation Front, depending on the target of their destruction. They are now taking another name – “Green Anarchists” – and they are recruiting.

In July and August, they are conducting the “Green Anarchists Tour – 2002,” a roving road show of punk-rockers and eco-freaks, spewing their anti-civilization venom from coast to coast. The cover of the Spring 2002 issue of their newsletter, Green Anarchy, says, “As long as civilization exists, we’re all endangered species.”

The lead story, “Hit them where it hurts,” is by Ted Kaczynski, the “unabomber,” inspired by Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance,” which permeates Kaczynski’s “Manifesto.” Kaczynski, and other eco-terrorists are described as ELPs, earth liberation prisoners.

Green anarchists – terrorists, to be more precise – consider the destruction they commit to be non-violent, since they target property, not people. Damage to people, however, is considered to be collateral damage – a reality of war.

Property is an extension of a person’s life, reflecting time and energy invested. Deliberate destruction of private property is, in effect, destroying a part of one’s life.

Green terrorism is not limited to the eco-freaks who call themselves green anarchists. Private property is being destroyed just as effectively by a less obnoxious – but equally dedicated – crowd of eco-zealots who infested the agencies of government during the Clinton-Gore years, and who still pursue their green agenda with the power of government license.

Item: In 1989, Congress said to the Corps of Engineers, “The secretary of the Army is authorized and directed to construct a flood-protection system to protect the developed land within such area. (PL 101-229, Section 104, paragraph 2c),” referring specifically to an area known as the “8.5 square-mile area” of Dade County, Fla.

The Corps has not yet constructed the flood-protection system. The Corps wants to flood the area, despite the congressional directive. A Florida judge has ruled that the Corps’ plan to flood the area, rather than “construct a flood-protection system” contradicts the language of the law.

Rather than comply with the law, and follow the judge’s ruling, green pressure, inside and outside of government, is now trying to change the clear meaning of the 1989 law. In a House Interior Appropriations sub-committee, the same green pressure has inserted this language into an appropriations bill:

In response to a local magistrate’s ruling, the Committee makes clear Congress’ intent regarding the expeditious completion of the flood-protection system for the 8.5 Square Mile Area and further clarifies that Congress intended the Army Corps of Engineers to implement a flood-protection system known as “Alternative 6D” which combines both land acquisition within the 8.5 Square Mile Area and construction of an interior levee and seepage canal.

In 1989, Congress had no such intention. There was no Alternative 6D. This action, taken by a sub-committee, inserts language into a massive appropriations bill which “Congress” will never see. Congress will not debate whether or not these homes should be flooded. This violence to private property is not as spectacular as the unabomber’s mail bombs, or ELF’s molatov cocktails, or ALF’s destruction of animal laboratories. But to the victims, the result is just as devastating.

This green jihad must end, whether it is waged by eco-terrorists, or by more politically astute eco-zealots. Private property is – or once was – sacred in America. John Adams got it right:

[T]he moment that idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the Laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist.

Eco-terrorists deny the validity of private property – indeed, of civilization. Eco-zealots are not much better, they simply deny the validity of private property, and look to a powerful central government to order and control civilization. Freedom can tolerate neither.